Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Human Rights
Issue 14 - Evidence
OTTAWA, Monday, November 27, 2006
The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights, mandated to monitor issues relating to human rights and, inter alia, to review the machinery of government dealing with Canada's international and national human rights obligations, met this day at 3:56 p.m. to consider a draft budget.
Senator A. Raynell Andreychuk (Chairman) in the chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Senators, we have two issues, both emanating from discussions with the steering committee. Due to the preoccupations of the Senate, which is moving in many directions, we agree that we prepare the report from both a strategic point of view and a substantive point of view. It is agreed that we spend our time for the study of the Convention on the Rights of the Child from December 31 until March 31 with the intention of filing our report when we return after the Christmas break. In that way, we would retain the ability to publicize our findings until June 30, 2007. Do we need a confirmation of that from the committee as a whole? No, it is for information purposes only.
In the next couple of weeks I will be contacting senators to find out their availability and wishes as to how we go about adopting the report in the interim. You will know your schedules in due course, I would hope.
Senator Nancy Ruth: Are we talking about children?
The Chairman: Yes. That is for information purposes.
As a result of that extension and the way in which the Senate has been moving, the steering committee has adopted that we have a reference to monitor issues relating to human rights and, inter alia, to review the machinery of government dealing with Canada's international and national human rights obligations.
Members filed 10 items in respect of embarking on a major study. Members will have to decide early in 2007 on the topic for the next major study. In the meantime, the fundamental change in the international human rights machinery is the Human Rights Commission, which has been transformed into the Human Rights Council. The Human Rights Council is somewhat different from the Human Rights Commission and it appears to be functioning in a different way.
There has been much concern in the human rights community that the Human Rights Council is not working and that Canada's representatives are not properly positioned to continue the kind of work they were accustomed to doing in the Human Rights Commission. It was thought that we could do a quick but necessary study on the Human Rights Council and give advice to the government on what we believe could be Canada's position vis-à-vis that machinery. As well, we could look at countries other than those that are like-minded or those that are the usual detractors from human rights machinery, but those countries that seemed to have been playing a role of abstaining rather than entering into the work of the HRC. The intent of the committee in such a study would be to give advice to government on that issue.
Without going into great detail because I think we should do that, it was my suggestion that in February we bring forward those people in Canada who follow the international human rights machinery and who look at the various mechanisms and are acquainted with the new Human Rights Council to get their perspectives and views. I would suggest that the committee meet with ambassadors and personnel in Geneva, who are tasked with being part of the Human Rights Council in one form or another.
Part of the human rights machinery that needs to be addressed is the Committee on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, CEDAW, which sits in Vienna. The key proposal would be that the committee travel to Geneva but, if we were to expend the time to go to Geneva, it would be virtually the same cost to spend time in Vienna to determine how the machinery responsible for women's issues is relating to the new Human Rights Council. Of course, it is the twenty-fifth anniversary of CEDAW so it is time to take stock of its machinery.
The proposal to come before the committee today is a supplementary budget under the existing mandate of the committee. We need to go before Christmas and I believe the budget committee of the Internal Economy Committee will be looking at budgets. The draft budget before members today concerns the trip to Geneva and Vienna.
As well, the conference is added because there had been the suggestion that perhaps we would go to New York. However, there are no Human Rights Council meetings at that time. The Inter-Parliamentary Union, IPU, has a meeting at the beginning of March for International Women's Day. The full meeting brings together the emphasis on the human rights aspects of women's issues. It would be proposed that we send one senator from the committee to that meeting, that we could cover off New York with any additional meetings and that the senator could carry the banner for us. I would look to one of the members of the committee to attend that meeting.
The proposal is before you. Are there questions?
Senator Nancy Ruth: What is the Human Rights Council?
The Chairman: In this committee's first report entitled, Promises to Keep: Implementing Canada's Human Rights Obligations, you will see that we were looking at the international machinery that supports the furtherance of human rights. We concluded that the Human Rights Commission was one of the mechanisms.
When the United Nations were set up, members joined only after agreeing to the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. In short, for a period of time, there was no specific way to deal with human rights. The Human Rights Commission was set up to deal with human rights issues because at that time the Security Council —
Senator Nancy Ruth: The Human Rights Council is a transformed UN body.
The Chairman: Yes, the Human Rights Commission has been transformed into a council.
Senator Nancy Ruth: Does that lower its status?
The Chairman: No, it simply makes it different and expands it a bit. The problem is that we are not sure how the council is interpreting its terms of reference and what that will mean to the existing human rights machinery. There were signs of difficulties, but I do not know whether the difficulties are political or merely political newness. People do not know how to deal with the new council and are not maximizing its advantages.
The Human Rights Commission started in the 1960s where other mechanisms did not deal with human rights. It afforded the opportunity to begin dealing with human rights. It is where human rights declarations and statements turned into conventions and treaties so that the whole process of furthering human rights was through that commission. By the 1980s, they were looking at implementation mechanisms. You will see that some human rights machinery is now more specific and has some follow-up mechanisms. In other words, the strength of this treaty is its implementation. We have gone from broad statements to pious invocations to implementing pieces of legislation, like the International Criminal Court. The council was part of the reforms of the UN. It was set up to broaden the work in the area of the Human Rights Commission and to provide a slightly different focus. There is now a High Commissioner for Human Rights and the council was designed to bring some coordination, planning and meaning to that position.
As you notice, Canada used to have a position whereby it could bring forward fairly and openly issues of human rights and find support for them. Now, it appears that those who are less concerned with universal human rights have a different agenda and others say they have a different way of looking at human rights. It is a whole new ball game.
Senator Kinsella: It is important for the Senate's Standing Committee on Human Rights to have a close relationship with the international machinery of human rights, particularly in Geneva. It is like having the Council of Europe and parliamentarians never going to Strasbourg — it would not make sense. It seems to me that we should travel to Geneva frequently. The chair is right in terms of how critical it is right now because of the international politicization of human rights in the UN system. In San Francisco, the first functional commission that the new United Nations establishment struck back in 1945 was the Commission on Human Rights. Its first order of reference or mandate was to see whether they could craft an international standard of human rights. This was chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt from the United States and assisted by John Humphrey from Canada. They developed interest in a universal declaration that became the work of the Human Rights Commission.
Over the years, as Senator Andreychuk has indicated, the commission became politicized because the members of the commission are representatives of countries as opposed to members of the Human Rights Committees, those special bodies that administer, for example, the international covenants. The Human Rights Committee for the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is composed of 18 individuals elected in their personal capacities, so they make it work because it is not politicized.
However, the commission became terribly politicized and some countries began to mock it. For instance, even when they were dealing with General Assembly Resolution 1503, you would have Cuba sitting there saying, "Everything is fine in Cuba," or, "Yeah, a few people got killed in that riot." Certain countries were making a mockery of it, and then the Palestine thing threw sand in the gears as well.
I think the Secretary-General was attempting to see if we had a new structure, whether we could depoliticize in that international political sense, the senior human rights body. It looked good on paper, but at the first election, we were all horrified when Libya was one of the lead countries.
While some countries, particularly the Western countries and the Americans, have almost abandoned it, though not completely, I think Canada can still have an influence in trying to have the new Human Rights Council be made right, if it gets organized and structured. If countries observe, "no one is watching us," countries like Libya will get away with distorting the whole purpose of the Human Rights Council.
It may be a real benefit that we would be contributing to the international process of restructuring and reorganizing. That process might get as much out of our visiting them as we would get for domestic purposes. I think it would be timely, and I would encourage it.
The Chairman: The commission worked in many ways, because we learned how to maximize our position. Now we are in a council, and I think we need to go through that process again. This study, because we have the broad mandate to continue to look at machinery, is a significant change, and this would complete that study that we are doing. It is a timely way of doing it, because it is just before the next council meeting. That would take us to the end of this year and not preclude us from doing the major study, so it was good positioning and a good time frame. We already have the mandate.
In January, we could look at getting the background material to all the senators, then have the hearings here in Canada, then go to Geneva and file the report. I do not anticipate it being a long report, but we would attach the background material and make some recommendations either to the council or to our government about how to maximize human rights.
Senator Carstairs: I assume this is a non-sitting week, which is what my calendar tells me. That is fine with me. However, my availability is questionable at this point, and obviously that is to be determined.
When we were in Montreal, we heard from the Canadian representative that sits and meets on the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Mr. Parfitt indicated that the Human Rights Council is recommending that these bodies would no longer be independent but they would report to the Human Rights Council. He had serious reservations about that, as do I. That committee works well because it is a stand-alone committee, and I do not think it should be part of the Human Rights Council per se. That is an area that I would like to examine very carefully, because it is not just that group that they are suggesting they would incorporate, but other groups as well.
I know why they want to do it; they want to centralize, but sometimes centralization results in committees losing their effectiveness in the public eye because they are no longer perceived as independent committees.
The Chairman: That is why I said we would make recommendations to the council, the broader community, and to our government. The debate has always been whether implementing committees would be more effective if they were coordinated as opposed to losing their independence. We have not commented on that, and it would be timely to do so.
Senator Nancy Ruth: My biggest concern is how to make Canada do something about it. It is my personal thing. I am interested in both of your comments. I think the timeline would be much too short. It takes some kind of analysis of the federal budget and departments and their negligence in enforcing even the CEDAW convention, never mind any other convention. If we are going to do it, I would like to do something that has some kick in it.
The Chairman: There are two ways to do that. We could analyze to what extent Canada has furthered the machinery and do that as a major study.
Senator Nancy Ruth: I am not so much interested in the machinery as I am in why women continue to be the poorest group in this country.
Senator Kinsella: I agree with you. The research in preparing the briefing note for the beginning of the new year could zero in on that point. If that is what they are saying about the committee that has the independent responsibility to see that the Convention on the Rights of the Child is being complied with, what about the Human Rights Committee that is supposed to be independent? It receives complaints even against countries that signed the protocols, and maybe those countries are feeling injured and so they want to try to get both the Human Rights Committee for the civil and political rights area and the Human Rights Committee for the social, economic and cultural area. What about the subcommittee on combating all forms of racial discrimination and protection of minorities? Are they looking at also putting that under the council?
The Chairman: Yes, they are.
Senator Kinsella: Maybe we have an ally, or maybe the high commissioner is looking for allies. If that is happening, the briefing note could quickly find that out for us and try to get us some intelligence on what Louise Arbour is saying.
The Chairman: It is her initiative, as I understand it, to combine them.
Senator Kinsella: She wants to combine them? She wants them to report through the council?
The Chairman: Yes.
Senator Kinsella: How curious. In the briefing note, is it stated that way?
Senator Nancy Ruth: If we are going to do it, I want us to really do it and make a good critique of the government, all the departments. I do not want us to repeat what the NGOs are saying as a counter to what Canada should be doing. We have to do more than repeat; we have to analyze it and look at it and be thorough and rigorous.
The Chairman: What we did first was look at the machinery to see whether Canada was serious about implementing international treaties. We found the government wanting on that, and we made some recommendations. We are using the Convention on the Rights of the Child for the purpose of the convention, but also as a template for others to point out those weaknesses.
The next study could take CEDAW and do exactly what you are saying. We are doing it, maybe in a phased way, but we are getting it to the point that you want. I am not looking for a Royal Commission because we know that they get shelved.
Senator Nancy Ruth: You are saying this is a first step; hold your fire; we might look at it in the fall. Is that what you are saying?
The Chairman: No, we will be starting April 1, 2007. That is the other half of it: How is the machinery managed at the international level? That is why we have some concerns because we knew how it was, and all of the sudden they shook up the deck. The second phase was how are they doing it legally, and now you are talking about how we are doing it through public policy, governmental application, department to department. That could be the next study. I think it all falls into place. I appreciate your impatience; it helps us to move faster.
Senator Nancy Ruth: That is a reaction to another committee.
Senator Baker: I was part of the committee when it went to Norway. While there, we clearly understood the importance of the trip. What bothers me is that in all these international conventions that we are signatory to, and that we ratified, how we treat them in law, in practice, in domestic law and, of course, when you look at it, you find that it does have an effect in the Canadian courts. However, it sure helps if it is part of the domestic law. How do you make a convention that we are signatory to part of domestic law? We discovered the answer in Norway, and Norway is the only nation in the world that has done it to my knowledge. They have put one sentence into their law that says that the international Convention on the Rights of the Child shall be a part of their bill of human rights. All portions of all articles of that convention shall be the law in Norway.
Some people say Norway is the only nation in the world that can afford to do that because they guarantee children, as a right, proper education, proper health care, daycare and so forth. The interesting point is you have to visit Geneva to discover the international situation. It is there that we will learn more. At that point, perhaps we can contribute to their progress as well. We cannot sit here in Canada and read case law. We do not get very far that way.
The Chairman: We are trying to get as many levers as we can. One lever is legal, one is financial and one is attitudinal, and we can try to attack them all, through a Royal Commission, or we can do what this committee has the capacity to do. We have done legal. We have done some practical things like the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which I hope will be legal and practical, and now we move into this one piece where we thought we knew what we had out there. Now they have dramatically changed on us and it will affect us.
Senator Kinsella: We are parliamentarians, and we do what I consider effective parliamentary diplomacy through our parliamentary associations, et cetera. I see this visit as also allowing us to look over the shoulder of what Canada's Foreign Affairs is doing. Who responds to a communication filed by a Canadian citizen against some law of Canada? It is Foreign Affairs. Who establishes the Canadian position down at the Human Rights Council? It is Foreign Affairs. Who is looking over you, saying, "Where are you coming up with this stuff?" Some of the people in Foreign Affairs would say, "Yes, let us get the Human Rights Committee under the council." Their interest could be the same as a lot other states representatives wanting the council to control things because many of these independent or quasi-independent bodies have had an adjudicative function in saying, "Canada, you are not complying with the Rights of the Child Convention." It comes from committee, not from our ambassador in Geneva. From that point of view, there is a role conflict.
The Chairman: There is another conflict of foreign policy. There is bilateral and the international trade. It was interesting to see this last vote against Canada where the like-minded voted with us. The others, introduced by Iran, were against us, supported by Cuba, et cetera. The abstentions were interesting. Kenya has put itself out to say it is a new emerging democracy under new leadership, multi-party and it is abstaining; Barbados abstained. I am wondering whether our Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade is looking at this disconnect between what we are trying to do with women's rights, development and HIV/AIDS. There has always been a problem in that area.
When I was the Human Rights Commission, it always troubled me from a slightly different point of view that we did not take the time in foreign policy to meet with these people. They all have ambassadors. There was the ambassador for human rights and I was always trying to connect them. I think there is more of a disconnect now.
There are many things we can do. Perhaps we will find it is more of a study, but it will be at least an alert, a heads up because it is not happening. We are in the doldrums about this. I am worried that the Europeans who usually pick up the ball seem not to be doing that at the moment on the Human Rights Council. Have they given up, which is what some ambassadors have told me, or are they as baffled as we are as to what to do? We might even give some advice to our like minded. There are many agendas to pursue.
We need to ask for the supplemental budget, so I am looking for a motion.
Senator Carstairs: I so move.
The Chairman: All those in favour? Carried.
I will do my best and try to put forward the case at the budget committee.
Senator Nancy Ruth: My researcher Beth Atcheson, whom you have worked with — she was assistant deputy minister of finance in Ontario, she is a lawyer, she is a partner at Cassels Brock & Brockwell, chair of LEAF — would love to go on this trip. I am asking about how I could pay for a portion her trip. Could she and I share a room?
The Chairman: That is the one question I do not want to answer, who you share a room with. I think there is a rule, and Senator Carstairs or Senator Kinsella might know it. My understanding is — we had this problem in foreign affairs — we can only pay for clerks and staff of the committee. The committee cannot pay for individual senators' staff.
Senator Nancy Ruth: I am not asking the Senate to pay for it.
Senator Baker: How do you normally match up if there is somebody accompanying the senator? I do not know how you do it. On every trip, we invariably have people who accompany the senators. How do you work that out? You are able to share rooms and so on.
Senator Carstairs: It depends on whether the travel is within or outside of Canada. You can, in fact, have a staff person accompany you on any trip in Canada, and you can use one of your 64 points. That person can have all of the benefits of your use of a point to go from Ottawa to wherever.
You can also send them to conferences to represent you, and you can use one of your 64 points to do that; however, you cannot do it internationally because our points do not qualify for international travel.
As far as sharing rooms, it is simple: As you know, my husband frequently accompanies me on many of these trips, and I usually use one of my Aeroplan points to get him there, and he shares my accommodations.
Senator Nancy Ruth: Would she come to meetings?
The Chairman: It is a policy decision. I know in one committee, a number of years back, the collective members said no, and there were reasons for that.
I have recently travelled with our Foreign Affairs Committee where one senator paid for a researcher and that person accompanied us throughout the trip. We did not hold in camera meetings. They were not public meetings, but they were not confidential meetings. For example, on the trips we took in Sweden and Norway, there would be no reason why we would not meet. If somebody suggested they would like to meet with us in confidence, we still have to make that decision about whether we want to meet with someone in confidence.
Senator Nancy Ruth: Do I make a formal letter of request?
The Chairman: First, we should get our budget. Then we start planning. I do not think we need a letter.
Senator Nancy Ruth: She wants to attend the meetings.
The Chairman: We would simply send out the invitation to see who is interested and available, and, at that point, you can respond by saying "and by the way," to the clerk. Whether you do it formally, informally, by letter or email is your choice.
Is there anything else?
I would like to welcome Josée Thérien formally. Josée is our new clerk. I hope she can continue in both capacities.
As I pointed out, the target, unless something changes, is we have two weeks that we are supposed to be shut down here in March, and it would be proposed to take one of those weeks, so we will have to determine the actual time frames, what is the best for the UN, and we hope we can do that as soon as the budget is ready. I am talking about the Geneva; New York would involve an individual senator.
Senator Nancy Ruth: You are talking about going to Geneva in March? It is better than February.
The Chairman: We are sitting in February, and I do not think our side could be away. We would have our hearings here, and it would flow well that way. We would do our preparation here, get as much input here and end up in Geneva and have all the questions we need to put to them and reactions to the report.
The committee adjourned.